Tropic of Capricorn

175) Africa in a drop C'est détonnant, une tubéreuse tropicale animalisée. J'ai l'impression de mettre le nez dans un parfum ancien aux substances aujourd'hui interdites. La densité est magnifique, je suis plongé dans un souvenir d'enfance au Congo Belge/Zaïre, dans les jardin d'un hotel au crépuscul, au milieu d'une immense réserve naturelle. La moiteur étouffante rendait l'air liquide et à la faveur de la montée de la lune les fleurs libéraient leurs effluves comme de l'encre se diluant dans l'eau, ce n'était plus du parfum mais du miel en apesenteur. Le musc utilisé ici est juste sublime, il est l'animalité (presque fécal) en équilibre avec l'odeur fruitée de la mangue pour sublimer le jasmin et la tubéreuse...et je revois alors de nouveau ces soirées africaines où l'on se rassemblait sur la terrasse de la piscine pour contempler, du haut de notre montagne, les éléphants quittant la jungle pour venir s'abreuver au lac, à nos pieds. (et qu'es que ça sent ces grosses bêtes!) Bref, putin ce parfum est beau! It is explosive, a animalized tropical tuberose. It's like diving my nose in an old perfume which substances are now banned. The density is gorgeous, I am immersed in a childhood memory in Belgian Congo / Zaire in the garden of a hotel at dusk, in the middel of huge Nature Reserve. The stifling dampness made air liquid. Taking advantage of the rise of the moon flowers freed their fragrance like ink diluting in water, it was not perfume anymore but honey in zero gravity. Musk used here is just beautiful, it is the animal (almost fecal) in equilibrium with the fruity smell of mango to sublimate jasmine and tuberose ... and then I see once again these African evenings when we assembled on the pool terrace to gaze from the top of our mountain, the elephants leaving the jungle to come and drink at the lake at our feet. (and that smells these big beasts!) In short, this fragrance is fucking beautiful!

What an amazingly curious fragrance this is! I received it two days ago and my first impression was shock. My second was...OK...I see...but too, far too animalic for me. At the beginning I could hardly smell anything else but hyraceum. I sensed some flowers hiding in the background but the animalic note was so overwhelming that it just stole the show completely. As I don't give up on things easily, I persevered...and long story short: this perfume is highly addictive! It reveals more and more of its beauty to me as time passes, and at the moment I cannot think of wearing anything else from my wardrobe. I used to live in and near tropical forests in Thailand and Malaysia. This perfume is like a zip file of the scents I met in those countries...the animalic notes remind me of a meditation cave near the monastery I lived in, which was inhabited by bats and other small mammals...the flowers I know from the gardens of the monastery and the forest around, from the streets and flower markets of Bangkok and Chiang Mai or my favourite parks in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore... the fruits from those amazing markets...the smell of sandalwood from temples... All this combined together does succeed in conjuring up a tropical night: it is silent yet resounding with nocturnal life, menacing and calming at the same time, repulsive and irresistibly attractive...I can't get enough of it at the moment. Thanks, Ellen Covey for this magic fragrance! Longevity is excellent, 12 hours easily. Sillage is not enormous, after a few hours it calms down to a skin scent, which given the unusual character of this perfume is not a problem.

Tropic of Capricorn is a dark, wet, rotting monster of a fragrance. It opens with fermenting fruits and decaying, narcotic, flowers in a hot, humid, tropical miasma. This is the 'bad boy' of tropical fragrances. It's the tropics at their dirtiest. As the top fades a mind-blowingly strong animalic chord punches its way into the fray, and for the next 8 hours or so rotten fruit, dying flowers and animalic fur fight tooth and nail for top billing. Sweet to the point of curdled, rich to the point of overwhelming, Tropic of Capricorn is an amazing experience, and a frag that is sure to be an instant love or hate - Not much room for middle ground with this. Luckily, for me it was love at first sniff. Throughout the wear time I get alternating blasts of fermenting sweet fruits, dark, poisonous florals and some of the skankiest snimalics I've ever encountered. I get notes from apricot all the way to ripe blue cheese shimmering in and out of focus. Although quite linear, there is a lot going on in the Tropics, if nothing else - it's not boring!. Sillage is heavy, even oppressive - but I think it rather suits the humid, cloying nature of the frag. Longevity is stellar, this juice is thick and oily, a little goes a long way. I'm not sure where one could really wear this, so I choose to wear it whenever I don't especially care about offending the more precious souls amongst us. EDIT: Thanks to Scorpiosheep for introducing me to this frightening beast!

Oh my. This is gorgeous. It is exactly what it promises and more - an animalic and dark tropical floral. The fact that this is 100% natural blows my mind. It is rich and magical. The opening is full of natural floral absolutes. I can smell a lot of natural tuberose absolute very clearly. A fruity note pleases the floral composition which, although very natural, doesn't sparkle - it emits a dull glow as flowers would in moonlight. The development is natural, slow, and organic. After the gorgeous floral opening, the florals recede just a little bit and you can sense the composition in perfect balance. This really is a subtropical evening - night-blooming jasmine, plumeria, various datura species, the buzzing of dragonflies, wet subtropical earth (a very specific barely-rotting substrate aroma captured perfectly by the hyraceum and fruit tinctures), and the warm enveloping glow of the moon. The base is gorgeous - a warm, slightly animalic woody base full of Siam benzoin and a tinge of sweet ambergris. As somebody who grew up in this precise subtropical environment, I must say this is a monumental success. It is without a doubt a unique and engaging perfume with unquestionable quality and artistic vision. Buy this now before it's gone!

What a strange scent! I ordered 5 samples from the Olympic Orchids site. Out of the five this is the most transformative and interesting. I forgot that it was a unisex scent, so at first I thought it smelled so bizzare. When I looked at the fragrance's profile again, I realized I was smelling the animalic aspect of the scent, which made me more accepting. I think I am also used to very feminine smells that are comprized of only flowers and delicate smells. Once the perfume settled down, the scent melted into my skin and became sweet, musky, and dark with a breeze of deeply fragrant flowers. I imagined a dark, slightly dangerous tropical jungle, but with the comfort of some unkown but familiar flower. Maybe the power of suggestion! but this perfume is quite mysterious, and I found myself eagerly awaiting the next application, which I am wearing again today! I appled the perfume to my wrists and neck, and added a small swipe of Lush's Lust perfume stick close to my elbows and armpits, just for another layer of floral scent as I move around. I wonder how this scent would smell on my boyfriend?

Tropic of capricorn is a tropical and animalic perfume by olympic orchids. The smell is very sweet and nice. The opening is very intense with a very harsh animalic note but when It fades out It gets a very creamy and fruity vibe. This perfume makes me think of some of Francesca bianchi's perfumes. The most noticeable notes are the animalics, the tropical fruits, the gray amber and the osmanthus. Over all during the dry down i can get a very strong osmanthus scent! This perfume is perfect yo wear during the day on winter or spring, but i can image Simeone wearing It with summer clothes, sat on a terrace near tthe beach having a mojito at evening un summer. The performance is good with long lasting power and strong projection at beggining and after a while becoming like a second skin, noticeable at shot distance but always noticeable. This has been a very good discovering for me! Scent: 8.5 Longevity: 9 Sillage: 7.5 Quality/price: 7 Versatility: 6 Originality: 9 Global: 9

this is.. utterly intoxicating! its animalic, musky,resinous, dank and wet, but tropical and fruity and sweet at the same time! oh i like this. this is what you'd wear on a humid steamy night! I dont get a fecal note per say but it is animalic on my skin. NOT A SAFE BLIND BUY. sample first, since this creation smells very different on everyone. For me, it turns tropical, musky animalic and darkly sweet. This is a masterpiece of art, and not wearable for everyone. My skin turns the skankiest of notes into beauty; so for me this is breathtaking. This is a pivotal landmark fragrance that anyone who needs to know what dark, fruity, musky and animalic smells like. It is unique, and there is no comparing to any other fragrance out there. A mysterious, bewitching brew, that quite literally makes my mouth water. Incomprehensibly sexy.

This is the type of scent that I enjoy the most. Floral, animalic in your face kind of a scent. It opens quite "radical" with a very indolic feeling (jasmine), together is a jungle vibe (mango, frangipani and the osmantus). The touch of ambergris is to die for... This could be too much, but quickly it settles to an amazing sexy, delicious fragrance, that you cannot stop smelling whatever place in your body you have sprayed this on... It feels natural, mysterious, uplifting and very sexual.. not for kids. This was a great surprise when I get a sample together with my first Olympic Orchid purchase, WoodCut, which is another gem of this fantastic independent house. Originality: medium-high Scent: 8.5/10 Performance: High Would I buy it: Yes (already in my collection)

I received a sample set of 6 Olympic Orchids fragrances on the perfumer's blog, and I was most excited to try this one. Upon first sniff, I couldn't stand it. All it smelled like to me was musky animal pee and black licorice. The second time I wore it, I don't smell as much of the licorice but I'm still not crazy about it. I'm starting to appreciate the animal quality, but in my opinion it totally overwhelms the fragrance. I would prefer the floral and fruit notes to be stronger in this fragrance, but I suppose this odd balance is part of the charm. I doubt that I will ever smell something quite as intriguing and odd as this fragrance. If you're up for a truly unique olfactory experience, you should try Tropic of Capricorn!

“the dark fecundity of nature, ... a night so frighteningly silent, utterly incomprehensible and eloquent at the same time”. The perfume creates the aura of a still, humid tropical night redolent with the scent of exuberant, blooming life, quick death, and the almost immediate rebirth that springs out of the dead flowers, something sensed at a level below conscious thought. That is a marvellous description of this fantastic beloved perfume of mine. I adore it. It is my signature scent. I wear it all the time...almost. It is incredible. I can say no more.

Some of you seem to be getting some extreme notes, feces? Animal jungle sex? It's a lot tamer than that, while indolic jungle florals are abounding, it's never fecal, the white flowers stay waxy and don't cross over into the unpleasant, hyrax and ambergris are soft and slightly powdery but again, the vulgarity of these notes hint towards an earwax scent at the most, and the fruits don't struggle for control either, they're all a part of a well-rounded composition that speaks to the past and tears at the future.

it's dark and humid, floral and rotting, all the way down. contrasting this to your concept of commercialized, fruity, bikinied, waxed, spray-tanned sex on the beach, this is the polar opposite. the darkest night; a dense layer of ocean air on thick green leaves and stalks; unshaven and sweating; rotting fruit with a fat, wet bite taken out of it. it's exotic and erotic. if you enjoy animalics, it's a safe bet that you'll enjoy this one. what still remains - azaleh suspension states - VONDISY, kodomo

Dark, dank and utterly compelling. I love that the flowers are past their prime, this is probably why this is the only perfume with a tuberose note that I can stand. The mango note reminds me of the melon note in Diorella in that it's over ripe and I love that too. This is the first time I've smelled Africa stone and as far as animalics go, I think I'm liking it more than civet. Definitely more than castoreum. This perfume is so rich and strange and beautiful. Very evocative.

A very good surprise to me. One of the most unusual scents that i tryed in last years along with Salamanca. This is a great perfume with animalic and fruit notes, connecting papaya/ambergris in a perfect blend. In the first smell remind me my grandfather's farm and a lot of my childhood with my father. It's strong and concentrated and, consequently, your longevity is very good. Thanks Ellen!

I won a sample of this and a few other new scents from Olympic Orchids in a givaway on the perfumers blog. This I think is my favorite of the ones I got to sample! It is floral and fecal in equal measure! I had never experienced hyrax before, but I'm in love! Intensely animalic! This scent is not for the faint hearted!

If St Clair's Casablanca were obscured by a dense fog, you'd have something like Tropic of Capricorn. Even though I'm only testing on a dabber, I suspect this might do the trick on days when you're in the mood for a humid animalic floral that's less vivid and not going to be the center of attention. It's quite nice.

Tropic of Capricorn is a true jasmine bomb. Like Lush's Lust, amplified. Incredibly natural smelling white florals with a good metric tonne of indole. I love it. Treat yourself if you love jasmine!

This is one of the best things I've ever smelled in my life. This is a feral lactonic dream and I want to bathe in it.

Panthers fucking ferociously on a bed of rotting banana leaves. Love.

Feral animals eating ripe mango in a tropical jungle, fucking next to a pile of rotting dead bodies. This perfume is quite... something. It features 2 primary notes. Firstly, a very fruity mango being propped up by frangipani -- giving it a nice tropical vibe and rounding it out. The second is an animalic which is the star of the show. filthy and sweaty (reminds me of dogs when they haven't been cleaned in a long while) plus a rough sourness (Ambergris). It's also kind of rotten? I've only smelled a rotting animal corpse once in my lifetime and I'll never forget it. This is very close to that, and this specific facet is incredibly strong in the opening. There's also some warm heat that I think would be best described as 'sex' (It reminds me of the same heat CdG's Yoyogi has funnily enough). The backing is a standard jumble of designer perfumes and I do pick up a bit of Sandalwood and Jasmine occasionally but that's mostly it. For this review I read a summary of the novel Tropic of Capricorn to try and understand this better. To my understanding the novel features an author having sex with a bunch of women, cheating on his wife and remembering moments of childhood where had sex with his piano teacher, murdered another child and seeing his mentally-ill sister get abused? Maybe this is what the author smells when he's with women? recollections of the child he murdered when was young?? I don't understand the tropic vibe as the story takes place in Brooklyn! I appreciate the fact that this perfume got me to think a bunch and reflect on what I'm smelling and brought back some memories I forgot of. As art, I respect it. As a wearable though? No way lol. Also I love @Madrona's review.